When my business parter Danny and I put out a few ads out 6 months ago offering our services as wedding photographers one of the first responses was from Shabnam asking if we’d be interested in covering her Muslim Bengali wedding. As a couple of cocksure young snappers there was no job we wouldn’t take, no job too small, and in this instance no job too big.
As the big day approached it began to dawn on us that this would be a pretty big operation. For a start there were going to be 650 guests, more than double the total number of guests in the 3 weddings we’d covered to date, furthermore Asian weddings run very differently to those we’d shot before and attended as guests. The groom has a seperate ceremony to the bride, and neither are at the other’s ceremony. The groom’s ceremony was covered by Danny and had several hundred guests, I was lucky enough to cover the bride’s ceremony which as simply held in a small suite at the hotel and had less than a dozen people in attendance.
One of the people in the suite with me was the videographer (there were 2 of these, along with Danny and myself taking the photos, plus a friend of the couple who was wanting some practice shooting weddings and shadowed us all day). I was a little aprehensive about being too intrusive at such an intimate ceremony, but the videographer had no such reservations and seemed to have no problem holding his camera less than 30cm away from people’s faces and shining his light striaght into their eyes. This worked very nicely for me for a couple of reasons, firstly I felt a lot better about shooting with my loud shutter, and secondly his video light provided some lovely mood lighting for my shots.
After the formalities were over I finally had a 20 minute window to get some bridal portraits (I’d been at the venue for a couple of hours already but didn’t have to chance to take shots of her getting ready as I had expected). I’ve got a theory that as long as you know what you’re doing, have the right equipment and know how to use it, taking great photos is all about putting yourself in the right place at the right time. That place and time was now. There was some lovely soft light coming in through the window of the suite onto the bed, there was a stunning bride dressed in the most ornate dress I’d ever seen with amazingly intricate henna all over her hands and arms. The photos basically took themselves.
After these shots there was a bit of down time while we waited for the groom to finish his ceremony and the 650 guests to enjoy their starters. A kind soul brought some of these starters into the suite for us to eat and it was without question the most delicious Indian food I’ve ever had. Eventually the bride and her siblings got themselves together and made the entrance into the main hall. Picture the scene, there’s 3 official photographers, 2 official videographers, countless other punters sporting SLRs, point and shoots and mobile phones all jostling for the best position, it was the closest thing to a paparazzi scrum I’ve ever been involved in.
The cutting of the cake was no different.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, a chaotic assortment of unpredictable events and situations that we had to be ready to capture. Kids are always great subject for photos and there must have been 200 of the things running around screaming all day, it was tough keeping any of them still for long enough to get a shot, but I did like this one.
6 days till we give the couple a slideshow and I’ve still got some final editing to do, I’ve managed to put it of for the last half hour or so thanks to this blog but I need to get into it shortly. All in all I was very pleased with how our photos have turned out, it was a manic, exhausting and often challenging day, but when you’re sitting on the train on the way home with the knowledge that you’ve got some amazing images in the memory cards in your pocket it makes it all worthwhile. And now we’ve got some Asian wedding photos in our portfolio this could open up a whole new market, a market with over 1.1 billion people in India alone!
